Chapter 489: Exchange

It was six o’clock in the morning.

Zhang Anmin, the Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery’s junior attending physician, was exhausted. He would rather die than wake up, but he was forced to rise early. He had also arrived at the ward.

Previously, Zhang Anmin was just like any other weak attending physician. On the days his department director did not perform a ward round, he would also wake up and go to work at around eight o’clock or half-past eight in the morning. He would perform his ward round at nine o’clock, then spend half the day performing surgeries.

In that situation, Zhang Anmin had sufficient time to change his child’s diaper during the two hours before he went to work. He could also clean himself, make a rich breakfast for his wife and mother-in-law, then leave the house when his mother-in-law rolled her eyes at him.

After he reached home, Zhang Anmin would also have enough energy to make dinner, feed his child, change his diapers, and receive an “I had a tough life” lecture from his mother-in-law. Once he pampered his wife, he would still have time to wash the plates, take a bath, and do the house chores.

Since Ling Ran stayed in the operating area, days like those went further and further away from Zhang Anmin.

First of all, Ling Ran asked a lot during surgery. Even though the total number of questions he asked was not many when Zhang Anmin compared it with the absolute value, if a chief surgeon could not answer more than five questions, it would be very awkward for him in the operating theater.

In order to prevent such awkwardness, Zhang Anmin could only arrive at the operating theater earlier for ward rounds. Then, he was able to modify the plan according to the patients’ conditions and make preparations beforehand.

For Zhang Anmin, surgery each day was now like performing ward rounds with his department director.

Nevertheless, Zhang Anmin persisted.

Every doctor went through nine years of compulsory education, five years of undergraduate studies, three years of masters’ degree, a year of internship, three years of housemanship, and three years of being a resident doctor. If he were humiliated, the embarrassment he suffered had to be of a higher standard.

Besides, Zhang Anmin was willing to be the one bullied by Doctor Ling and perform more surgeries as if he was wronged. That was because he was conducting surgeries under the instruction of a high-ranking doctor.

As an adult in his thirties, working and learning hard every day may have sounded very good, but he could be mocked or be the topic of discussion among others if he really did that.

Without a strong mental fortitude and a clear goal, it would be very unpleasant. It was really easy for people to give up.

When Zhang Anmin stayed in boarding school in the past, why did he sleep during class and secretly hide in the toilet at three o’clock in the morning? It was all because he was afraid of being the subject of ridicule.

Now, Zhang Anmin found it fitting that he could learn surgeries at ease while he received sympathy from everyone else at the same time.

As long as he could finish his house chores and breakfast that usually took him an hour and a half in an hour, console his wife, and be slightly shameless in front of his mother-in-law, he could get through life.

“Hello, we’re doing ward rounds.” Zhang Anmin walked into a room, and he spoke in the language he learned from Ling Ran—the Things We Need to Pay Attention to During Ward Rounds™.

The patient turned around.

Zhang Anmin smiled and raised his chin. The resident doctor who followed him was like a puppet soldier. He tapped the side of the patient’s bed and shouted, “Hello, ward round.”

Next, the houseman and interns also stood in front of the patient and shouted, “Hello, ward round!”

It was a method Zhang Anmin had developed on his own, and it was one that did not pay particular attention to the way he performed the ward round. This increased the efficiency of the ward round performed early in the mornings, but the drawback was, the patients who were woken up had worse attitudes.

“Got it, geez.” The patient who was first woken up did not always feel happy.

Zhang Anmin shrugged. That was the main problem with having ward rounds too early in the morning. If the ward round was at nine o’clock, the patients and their families would have a much better attitude. Most of the patients would try their best to make the attending physician happy.

The number of thoughtful patients would be a lot lower at six o’clock in the morning.

“Let’s start,” Zhang Anmin whispered.

“Okay,” the resident doctor immediately replied. He said, “The patient is fifty-five years old. He mainly complains about his upper right abdomen. He says that he has been suffering from chronic pain for a year, and it has become more serious now. Before his admission, the patient suffered pain for two hours. The CT scan shows that his gallbladder is getting bigger, while his intrahepatic bile duct is swollen and expanded…”

The resident doctor had arrived much earlier than the attending physician.

Generally, the resident doctor was required to arrive at least half an hour earlier and memorize the details for the ward round.

When resident doctors faced chief surgeons who were strict and harsh, they may need an hour to memorize the details before they repeated whatever they had memorized from one bed to another bed.

For resident doctors, this could be one of the most difficult parts during the early stages of their career, especially when they met attending physicians who performed ward rounds at six o’clock in the morning. The resident doctor would need to wake up at four o’clock in the morning and reach the hospital before five o’clock. Then, they needed to memorize the information…

The procedure may look quite routine, but in the hospital, this was just the beginning of a doctor’s suffering.

Zhang Anmin, who had become a junior attending physician, was already busy enough taking care of himself. He could not take care of the resident doctor as well. The only thing he could do to comfort the resident doctor was to ask a question, “What disease do you think it is?”

“Based on the comprehensive CT scan, it should be cholecystitis,” the resident doctor said.

“So?”

“So… is it possible that he has a liver cyst?”

“So?” Zhang Anmin had been questioned too frequently recently. He personally felt that he needed to be the questioner to vent his frustrations.

The resident doctor felt a little lost by the questions. It was just six o’clock in the morning. A normal person would either still be sleeping comfortably, waking up with a blurry head while wanting to sleep again, waking up for a round of s*x in the morning before they wanting to sleep again, or getting back home after having breakfast. But what about him? He still needed to wake the patient up during his ward round.

The resident doctor was confused, but he gave an answer that could be used in all situations. “Perhaps we should consider a tumor?”

The patient who had been annoyed on the bed was suddenly very much awake. “Tumor? Cancer? I have cancer?”

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“You don’t have the symptoms of cancer!” Zhang Anmin was so mad that he glared at the resident doctor.

Zhang Anmin turned around and did not want to hide from the patient anymore. He said, “We suspect that you have clonorchiasis. The multiple expansions in the intrahepatic bile duct are typical symptoms. It’s viewed as a major illness, but it’s not on the same level as cancer. If you cooperate with us for the treatment, you can be discharged very soon.”

Zhang Anmin looked at the patient, and he was worried that the patient would feel terrified. So, he took the CT scan out and said, “From the CT scan, you can see the condition of your inflammation and the edges clearly. So, you don’t have to worry about it…”

“Is that the clonorchiasis?” The patient sighed in relief.

“Yes, you know about clonorchiasis? It’s mainly due to parasites, do you usually eat sashimi?”

The patient thought about it and said, “You mean Japanese food? I don’t eat that.”

“It’s also possible for you to have ingested some if you always drink hot porridge or barbecue that’s not fully cooked.” The voice this time around, came from the door.

Zhang Anmin found the voice very familiar. He turned around to look because he still could not believe that he just heard those words.

“Ah? Doctor Ling? You’re out?” Zhang Anmin stared at the figure who was standing at the door.

Since the figure stood with his back to the door, the light from the corridor shone on his back, causing the figure’s face to be vague because it was covered in a halo. But based on the body size, the awe-inspiring mannerism, and the handsome posture, Zhang Anmin was quite sure the person was Ling Ran.

It was impossible for it to be anyone else.

It was impossible for Yun Hua City, Changxi Province, or any other part of the world to have another person like that.

“I came out since I had some free time.” Ling Ran stood in the corridor of the hospital, as though he was shopping. Ling Ran felt happy when he saw the opened door of a room in the ward.

A few of the young doctors greeted him cluelessly.

Ling Ran smiled faintly and nodded. Then, he walked in and asked, “How’s the condition of the intrahepatic bile duct?”

“It’s not to the extent that a hepatectomy is needed,” Zhang Anmin answered the core of the question.

“Okay,” Ling Ran replied before he quietly walked closer to Zhang Anmin. He requested the medical records and took a look.

On the other side, Zhang Anmin was slightly worried. “What are you trying to do?”

“I want to learn how the Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery performs ward rounds,” Ling Ran replied honestly. He had stayed too long in the operating theater, and all he had done was perform surgeries. He did not cover any topics related to ward rounds, consultations, prognosis, and so on.

Zhang Anmin looked at Ling Ran’s handsome face. The alarm bells in his head rang for a long time.

Zhang Anmin asked warily, “Doctor Ling, are you ready to perform cholecystectomy on your own?”

With Ling Ran’s frequency and speed in performing surgeries, Zhang Anmin felt that his main surgical skill—cholecystectomy—would slip from his grasp very soon.

Ling Ran only smiled and said, “I still need more practice.”

Cholecystectomy was not given to him by the system. Since Ling Ran was only at Novice Level, he did not want to perform that surgical method immediately. His foundation was excellent, so if he accumulated experience and practiced for a while, his skill would improve very fast. At least, he needed someone’s help to make sure that he could perform the surgery, ensuring quality.

However, Zhang Anmin’s expression kept changing.

It meant that the day Ling Ran could handle hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgeries alone would eventually come.

Zhang Anmin could not help but complain in his heart, ‘Those fans who waited in the hospital have so little patience.’

He continued to think about it. ‘With the Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery’s strength in Yun Hua Hospital, if we were to give half of the weekly admitted patients who need cholecystectomy to Ling Ran… No, it’s impossible for Ling Ran to want just half of them…’

When Zhang Anmin thought about it, he mustered all of his courage, and coupled with how dumb people usually were in the mornings, he bravely said, “Doctor Ling, you’re not allowed to follow and observe the ward rounds performed by the Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery.”

Ling Ran asked doubtfully, “What’s the reason for other doctors not being able to observe the ward rounds?”

“Because… Because…” Zhang Anmin was not able to give a clear reason.

Ling Ran said naturally, “We can opt for a learning exchange. You can bring me along when you perform cholecystectomies, and I can bring you along during hepatectomies too.”

The young doctors in his treatment group were already exhausted, and it was impossible for them to learn hepatectomy immediately. There were too many prerequisites to learn.

So, Ling Ran was the main force during his hepatectomies. Lu Wenbin and the others could only learn the basics.

However, Zhang Anmin, who had been working in the Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery for almost ten years, had already satisfied all the pre-required conditions to perform hepatectomy. Ling Ran could save himself the trouble of finding doctors from the Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery at the last minute when he performed such major surgeries.

Zhang Anmin’s cheeks slowly turned red.

“Hepatectomy? Really?” Zhang Anmin asked.

“Yes.” Ling Ran’s sincerity was so good-looking that it made everyone in the room hold their breaths.

“Then… it’s a deal!” Zhang Anmin gulped. His hands were sweaty. He felt like he had won the lottery.

In the Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, the liver was always their top priority, and it occupied an absolutely important status. In terms of complexity and importance, the gallbladder was far behind the liver.

Zhang Anmin had always wanted to perform liver surgeries, but he never got the chance to do it.

Meanwhile, hepatectomy was the most important of all liver surgeries. If he could master it… Zhang Anmin already started to think about how his life would be after a promotion: an increment in his salary, hiring babysitters, and renting a bigger house…